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A Fag Hag is a woman who associates closely with gay men. The term used to be an insult but is becoming increasinglyadopted by the women themselves. Friendships between Fag Hags and gay men allow for closeness and intimacy without the danger of sexual feeling getting in the way.

Fag Hags are stereotypically portrayed as overweight. At best, she's a classy BBW; at worst, she's a neurotic drama queen who is either promiscuous or perpetually single. In many cases, the Hag started hanging out with her gay friend because she was attracted to him, before he turns her down for obvious reasons (wishful thinking will ignore even the most Flamboyant Gay characteristics). The friendship lasts however, and some Fag Hags even seek out gay men—either because they find them nonthreatening or as a replacement for a 'proper' straight relationship. Gays who enjoy the company of these ladies do so for similar reasons, but it isn't uncommon for a gay man to see his Hag as a sort of maternal figure, especially if she's older than him and/or if his own mother rejected him. A Hag who acts as a mother figure to a group of gay men is sometimes called a "Wendy"—because she takes care of the Lost Boys.

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This trope has been heavily stereotyped in Real Life on all sides. A woman with a gay friend at all is often called a Fag Hag even if they simply enjoy each other's company with no ulterior motives. Some women, however, see all gay men as possible Pet Homosexuals, even though the men in question might find this patronizing. And lastly, by no means do all gay men enjoy female company; at best, some simply get along better with other men, and at worst they can be as misogynistic as a stereotypical straight male misogynist.

Some women resent the name "Fag Hag" for multiple reasons including the misogyny that comes along with the term, and are rather referred to as "Fruit Flies", "Mo Hos", "Gay Boy Bunnies", "Alternative Lifestyle Assistants" or something along those lines. The Japanese equivalent of this phrase, Okoge, literally means "the rice stuck to the bottom of a pot", playing off of Okama (literally, a type of pot for cooking rice), the slang term for homosexual men and drag queens. In German, it's "schwulenmutti". Some people, including gay and straight, eschew terminology all together and simply enjoy their friendships for what they are without the need to put each other down or classify each other in a derogatory way.

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The equivalent for a man who hangs out with lesbians is a Lez Bro (or Dyke Tyke or Little Dutch Boy - think about it), but they're not quite as common in Real Life or pop culture. Fag Stag, a Token Straight man in a group of gay men, is slowly becoming more used, but nowhere near Lez Bro levels, let alone Fag Hag.

Compare Yaoi Fangirl. The Pet Homosexual can be an inversion if it's a gay man whose friends are almost entirely straight women. See also Last Het Romance, where the woman may become a Fag Hag in response to her partner outing himself.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Reiji (Rage) from the Gravitation manga series is a robot panda-driving Yaoi FangirlFag Hag fixated on Shuichi, even following him from America and becoming his band's manager because of this obsession.

Comic Books

Kate Spencer, the titular character of the Manhunter comic is very much a fag hag; her closest (and arguably only) friend in the superhero business is gay and dating her paralegal. And if that's not enough, a comic set in the future shows her son is gay, too — and likely the heir to her title.

Scott Pilgrim has this to almost parodic levels. There are three decidedly heterosexual characters, one of whom has has recurring Ho Yay with another male character Played for Laughs. Eventually, the unambiguously straight characters can be counted on hand.

Ed Brubaker's superhero/spy series Sleeper has a character named Fag Hag, because she's an energy vampire that can only drain the lifeforce of homosexuals (complete with Gaydar!) She considers it Blessed with Suck, since her closest friends were always gay.

Beautie of Astro City is a a human-sized robotic fashion doll. She has an apartment above a gay bar and is friends to the local gay community because they're men who won't try to proposition her.

The author of Persepolis lives together with eight gay guys in one shared apartment in Vienna.

Kate Bishop of Young Avengers and Hawkeye fame is a more subtle example. She's both good friends with Wiccan and Hulkling of said team (and the three of them are the three longest serving members of the team), and she became something of a surrogate daughter to a gay couple she met when she moved to the West Coast after she saved their wedding, while also cat-sitting for a lesbian couple. In recent years, she's been depicted as best friends with America Chavez, who is a butch lesbian with whom she has extensive Les Yay teased (but Kate insists she herself is straight), and two of her three canon boyfriends (Noh-Varr and Fuse) are bisexual and attracted to one-another, while another boy she had extensive Ship Tease with (Speed) was implied to be bisexual in a oneshot story. At this point, the only straight people in Kate's life can be counted on one-hand.

Mrs. Nussbaum from Circles is a widowed straight woman who loves Paulie and the others, despite her late homophobic husband.

In Ask Hoops and Dumbbell, Dumbbell meets a lesbian who admits that she seeks out friendships with gay stallions because she finds friendship easier when Incompatible Orientation isn't a risk. Dumbbell accepts this(As opposed to a mare who previous tried to turn him into a Pet Homosexual), and the two quickly strike up a friendship.

Dumplin': Implied to be the case with Willowdean's late aunt Lucy. She was unmarried and is never mentioned to have had a boyfriend, and frequented a gay bar. She originally started attending because the bar had a drag show featuring Dolly Parton's music every week, but went on to become close friends with several of the performers working there.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme subverts Will & Grace in a very British way; it throws together an appalling gay man and a sociopathic straight woman, possibly because nobody else would care to share a grotty rented flat with them. Linda becomes reluctant fag hag to Tom.

The final episode of SPACED shows Twist socializing in a gay club, but looking sad as she realizes she's thrown away some of her best friends.

Edina from Absolutely Fabulous wants to be one of these, and frequently claims "All my friends are gay!", because she sees having a lot of gay friends as being fashionable. It isn't true. The closest she comes is her ex-husband Justin, and her former friend Max. And both are implied to have actually been turned gay by the act of sleeping with her.

Jen from Dawson's Creek is a self-proclaimed fag hag, her best friend Jack being gay.

In the recent Christmas episode of 30 Rock, Jenna Moroney describes her adoptive family as "four twenty-five year old gay guys."

Her entourage in the episode where she decides to be (more) difficult consists of Camp Gay guys, too.

Mercedes quickly becomes Kurt's "brassy hag" once she (finally) realizes romance is not an option. It's subverted when she hangs out with Kurt and his crush Blaine, and is bored out of her mind as the boys chat about theatre, fashion, and political issues relevant to them as gays. This results in her hearing nothing but the word "GAY" come out of their mouths.

Unfortunately, Kurt and Mercedes began drifting apart during the second season and into the third. However, Kurt has developed a close friendship with Rachel.

When Tina has an obsessive crush on Blaine, he says she's hagged out. Later, when she realizes how silly she was, she says she feels she'll only ever be a hag for Blaine, Kurt, and all the other gay men she'll ever meet. They assure her she won't be.

In a Saturday Night Live skit about Dumbledore coming out of the closet, JK Rowling (Amy Poehler) is on Larry King and reveals cut scenes from Harry Potter movies. In them Dumbledore is openly gay and Professor McGonagall is his faghag.

The Sarah Silverman Program features Sarah who is best friends and neighbors to Steve and Bryan, the most obese, nerdy, stoner gay couple ever seen.

The premise of the reality show Girl Who Like Boys Who Like Boys is filming several groups of girls and their own Pet Homosexual as they do... stuff.

When a gay couple moves into the neighborhood in Desperate Housewives, Susan is ecstatic to have them as her Pet Homosexual "just like on tv". Needless to say they hate her instantly. Though a season or two later they eventually start getting along and hanging out.

Subverted in an episode of Married... with Children. Peggy goes dancing with a gay guy and it is strictly platonic. But the gay guy's husband suspects that his partner is having an affair with Peggy!

Two-time Survivor player Corinne Kaplan made a point in both games of seeking out and aligning with a gay player. In her second season, it was with a guy who wasn't even in her original tribe, meaning she was willing to adjust her *entire game plan* in favor of working with a gay guy.

Corinne: I love my gays.

In Frankie Howerd Rather You Than Me, Jane says she finds the experience of being a hag "quite agreeable" when Frankie asks her if she's worried that being his beard has damaged her chances of meeting someone.

Debbie from Queer as Folk definitely counts, though given the premise of the show any other heterosexual woman would also qualify.

Dear White People: The woman in the couple who Lionel goes home with realizes she's this as her partner is really gay. She clearly makes her peace with it, because she's still with him near the end of the season.

Warehouse 13: Claudia eagerly becomes one once paired with Steve Jinks. She expresses her surprise that she only started becoming one with Steve, because "I mean, I am pretty fabulous, right?"

On Sense8, Daniela attempts to seduce Lito before realizing that he's in a committed relationship with Hernando. She then proceeds to essentially move in with them. It helps that she's an extreme believer in Guy-on-Guy Is Hot.

Music

There is actually a song called "Fag Hag" by Lily Allen.

In the musical production called Fairy Tales, the song "The Gay Guys" is about a woman bemoaning how every friend, every boyfriend, every husband, and even her father are gay, and warns the man asking her out that before the night is over she'll probably wind up turning him gay too.

From Grandmaster Flash's and Furious Five's "The Message" (1982):

"Crazy lady, living in a bag, eating out of garbage pails, used to be a fag hag."

Theatre

In the play Freak, "Fag Hag" is literally the name of a character who practices a scene from Pygmalion with the "Gay Drama Kid" (another legitimate character in the play).

Web Comics

Peejee for Jhim in Something*Positive. She gets over it (mostly), but only after Jhim moves to Washington D.C.

Rain has a few instances of this. Rudy addresses Rain as his Fag Hag following their break-up. Also, Gavin is Maria's fake boyfriend, making him a Lez Bro. Also, as Gavin is the only straight member of the main characters, he counts as one all his own.

In El Goonish Shive, Susan is close friends with Justin and even admits that she likes him because he will never feel any sexual attraction for her.

Missie of Misfile describes herself as this once she becomes friends with Rumisiel... to his extreme chagrin, as he's not actually gay; he is Ash's Beard, not the other way around like Missie assumes. Worse, he can't correct her without lying his ass off and/or breaking The Masquerade.

Ed, Edd n Eddy's Jimmy and Sarah seem to grow into this in later seasons, as Jimmy's Camp Gay tendencies were amped up more and more.

On Steven Universe, this role goes to Amethyst, while Steven himself is more of a Lez Bro; Garnet is a permafusion of the hotheaded Ruby and psychic Sapphire, while Pearl had a bad case of unrequited love for Rose Quartz, the Crystal Gems' former leader. Later additions to the team only strengthen the trope: Peridot has heavy Ho Yay with Lapis Lazuli, who herself struggles with the memories of her abusive relationship with Jasper. In Steven Universe: Future, it's even revealed that Bismuth has developed a crush on Pearl. Justified in that nearly all Gems, though biologically sexless, present female (Steven and one of his own fusions are the only known exceptions), so any relationship between them is going to be coded lesbian; Amethyst herself is the only main female character who doesn't have any romantic feelings toward anyone else, so she gets the Fag Hag role by default.

Steven's status as a Fag Stag becomes more apparent in later seasons, when even his human friends start pairing up in queer relationships (Sadie, for example, starts dating the non-binary Shep, making her pansexual).

The human Lars becomes a Lez Bro himself later in the series, when he becomes the leader of the Off-Colors, whose members include Rhodonite (a fusion of a Ruby and Pearl) and the truly massive Fluorite (who is the permafusion embodiment of six gems, all female and confirmed by Word of God to be in a romantic polyamorous relationship).

Real Life

Comedienne Margaret Cho is a self-described fag hag, which she claims stems from growing up in San Francisco and being raised almost exclusively by gay men, since she bonded with the gay kids at her school because they were outcasts just as much as she was for being overweight and Asian. "They say certain smells bring you back to your childhood. Well, the smell that brings me back is balls in panty hose!" She went on to talk about how "We were your date to the prom, and dragged your sorry asses through the Underground Railroad..." Cho can be described as the patron saint of Fag Hags.

That title may have to go to Oscar Wilde's close female friend Ada "Sphinx" Leverson, who was the Victorian equivalent of a Yaoi Fangirl. Leverson's Fag Hag-ness was considered as poisonous in some circles as homosexuality. A disguised version of her helped the Depraved Homosexual characters based on Wilde and his lover Alfred "Bosie" Douglas worm their way into society in order to corrupt it in the Wilde-bashing roman a cléf The Green Carnation.

Yaoi Fangirls. At best, they'll be genuine friends with gay guys and just so happen to find them attractive. At worst, they'll pretend to be friends just for cheap thrills.

Hugh Jackman is another notable Fag Stag, which has unfortunately lent itself to scurrilous gossip that he himself is gay. note No, say insiders, he's extremely devoted to his wife and has never made overtures toward his gay friends.

Israeli singer Boaz Maudanote Winner of the fifth season of the Israeli Pop Idol and a one-time contestant on the Eurovision Song Contest is a self-admitted fag stag.

Kathy Griffin. Most notably, one of her closest friends — and they are genuinely close friends, though he sometimes wishes they weren't, usually when she's embarrassing him live on national television — is Anderson Cooper, CNN's famous (and famously gay) Silver Fox anchor.

Comedienne Lisa Lampanelli said in her book, Chocolate, Please, that if it wasn't for gay men, "us fat chicks wouldn't have any friends."

Enforced in 18th century Italy, where it was not uncommon for rich noblewomen to have cicisbei — male companions or lovers, equivalent to mistresses for men. Cicisbei were more tolerated if they were known to be homosexuals and therefore were only around to be friends with the lady, and not to have adulterous relationships with her.

Kay Francis could be classed as one. She socialised and befriended several (closeted) gay men throughout her acting career.

Judy Garland was this. Her social circle included many gay men and she often went to gay bars with them. This helped contribute to her status as a gay icon.

Diana, Princess of Wales was well known for closeness with gay men. Given that her time in the public eye coincided with the worst of the AIDS crisis, the role was all the more important. In one famous moment, Diana removed her gloves and shook hands with a man diagnosed with AIDS in a public appearance; at the time, there was a strong (and entirely incorrect) belief that the disease could be transferred through touch, so Diana doing so—and later making a televised statement about how AIDS could not be spread that way—was considered shocking.

In a more lighthearted example, Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury were also close friends. It's even rumored that one night, Mercury helped Diana assume a male disguise and took her out on the town to visit all of London's hottest gay clubs incognito.

Estelle Getty, best known for her role as Sophia on The Golden Girls, was famed for her relationship with gay men; she herself joked that she felt most comfortable when she had her "five-fag minimum" around her. Getty explained that, given her career on the New York stage, being surrounded by gay men was inevitable, and she developed incredible Gaydar as a result. On a more serious note, Getty was also a tireless advocate for AIDS victims who appeared at charity events on a regular basis.

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